Community-Based Tourism and Social Sustainability: A Scoping Review of Planning Approaches for Equity, Inclusion, and Empowerment

Community-based tourism (CBT) is often promoted as a socially sustainable alternative to mass tourism, aiming to empower local communities through participatory planning, equitable benefit-sharing, and inclusive decision-making. However, its effectiveness in delivering equity, inclusion, and empowerment remains unclear. This scoping review examines 25 years (2000–2025) of academic and grey literature on CBT planning approaches addressing social dimensions, using the Arksey and O’Malley framework and drawing from four multidisciplinary databases: Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCOhost, and ProQuest. Findings reveal inconsistent definitions and indicators of social sustainability, with predominant focus on economic empowerment, often neglecting political and cultural inclusion. Local participation in planning is limited to consultation, lacking decision-making authority, and planning remains largely top–down. Structural issues such as power asymmetries, social exclusion, and governance deficits are underexplored. Intersectional analyses considering gender, ethnicity, or disability’s influence are rare. Community involvement is symbolic than transformative. Regional representation is uneven, with a concentration of studies in specific locales, overlooking small island states and post-conflict settings. This review calls for future research focused on intersectionality, meaningful empowerment, and participatory methods, key to fostering inclusive, equitable, and socially just tourism.